Jack Ma, Billionaire And Founder Of Alibaba, Suspected Missing After Criticising Chinese Government

By Edna Wande On Jan 4, 2021

Jack Ma, multibillionaire founder of tech companies Alibaba and Ant Group, has been suspected missing following his criticism of Chinese government, calling for economic changes and reforms.

On October 24, 2020, Ma slammed China’s banking system, deeming it run by a “pawnshop” mentality, during a conference in Shanghai.

Calling for economic reform during his speech, the 56-year-old tech magnate said;

Today’s financial system is the legacy of the Industrial Age. We must set up a new one for the next generation and young people. We must reform the current system.

His speech preceded the planned initial public offering of his Ant Group.

Subsequently, a series of actions have been taken against Ma’s companies including an antitrust investigation into Alibaba.

Ma, who is comfortable with the spotlight, has since not been seen in public for about three months, Yahoo Finance reports.

He hasn’t also tweeted in those months and was absent for the final episode of his talent show Africa’s Business Heroes, a competition for African entrepreneurs by Jack Ma Foundation in which 10 emerging African entrepreneurs are given a shared $1.5m (£1.09m) grant for pursuing their ideas.

The Chinese billionaire was replaced as a judge in the final episode of the show by Alibaba’s co-founder Lucy Peng and his picture was also removed from the judging webpage, according to Financial Times.

The publication also quoted an Alibaba spokesperson who stated that Ma could no longer be part of the finale of the show “due to a schedule conflict”.

The disappearance of wealthy business professionals isn’t unusual in China and has been occurring for a while. According to a 2017 piece in the Independent, “Chinese billionaires and CEOs keep disappearing in ‘state-sanctioned abductions”.

The mogul, worth an estimated $58.4billion, has donated millions of dollars in face masks, ventilators and other equipments to fight against coronavirus in several countries including Nigeria.

Ma also committed an additional $2.15 million toward developing a vaccine at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Australia.